When it comes to New England athletes, Joshua Grant is as New England as they come. Grant ran cross-country at Nashua North High School in New Hampshire, then went on to run cross-country for Lyndon State College in Vermont. So you wouldn't be surprised to find Grant racing in Boston on Saturday morning, Oct. 27.

The surprise was that it was Boston, Georgia, rather than that other Boston, and Grant was racing the 39th annual Boston Mini-Marathon, not New England's fabled Boston Marathon.

Nevertheless, Grant won the 13.1-mile race for the second year in a row, running the half-marathon in 1:15:48. Tallahassee lawyer Sheryl Rosen was also a repeat winner, taking the women's title for a second straight year while placing seventh overall in 1:22:07. One hundred and eighty-six athletes finished the race.

The signs said Boston, but there was no mistaking the South Georgia town for the Massachusetts metropolis. For instance, right after the race started, a truck hauling bales of cotton stopped for the runners.

After less than a mile the race was outside the city limits and the runners passed the first cotton fields. The course was on Dixie Road. Unpaved side roads were bright orange clay. Later on, the race went by pecan orchards, and cows resting under live oaks draped with Spanish moss. Whether or not it was Georgia, it was certainly not New England.

Going by the first cotton fields, six runners were out in front--Charlie Johnson, Chris O'Kelley, Brad Busboom, Charlie Kline, two-time Boston Mini winner Vince Molosky, and defending champion Joshua Grant. Five of the six were Tallahassee runner, the exception being Grant, who had traded his New England address for one in Albany, Georgia.

Grant had started to open a gap on the other five runners by the two-mile mark. Molosky and Johnson broke away from O'Kelley, Busboom, and Kline to chase Grant, but Grant's lead only increased. At six-and-a-half miles, the runners turned around to head back to Boston. There they realized they had been racing with the wind.

"It felt great going out," said Grant. "But then we turned around and there was the headwind. I'm sure a lot of people ran faster going out than coming back."

No one ran faster coming back than Grant. Continuing to leave the rest of the field behind, Grant returned to Boston to cross the finish line in a winning 1:15:48. Charlie Kline was almost as fast as Grant on the return trip.

Although he didn't make up any ground on the leader, he overtook the rest of the field and finished second in 1:18:45. Johnson was third in 1:19:15, O'Kelley fourth in 1:19:44, and Busboom fifth in 1:19:53. David Graf of Tallahassee was the first master runner in the race, placing sixth overall in 1:21:43. Molosky, who had run with the leaders early in the race, was eighth in 1:23:00.

Rosen wasn't just the defending women's champion at the Boston Mini. No other athlete had won more women's titles at Boston than Rosen, collecting eight wins from 2006 to 2017. But as Rosen raced for win number nine, she had company early in the race. Blakely, Georgia's Ann Centner was right alongside Rosen as the two left Boston. Centner remained next to the defending champ for miles.

During the fourth mile, the course crossed from Thomas County into Brooks County. Even if you missed the county line signs, you had to notice that the Thomas County stretch of Dixie Road had been recently resurfaced, while the Brooks County miles were still a treacherous mosaic of cracks and crevices. Going up the hill toward the county line, Centner moved behind Rosen.

She had only given up a few inches to Rosen, but it was the first few inches. By the turnaround, those inches had grown into a hundred-yard lead. Rosen had expanded that to 800 yards by the end of the race, finishing as the first woman and seventh overall in 1:22:07. Center was the women's runner-up and ninth overall in 1:25:01.

Near the turnaround Alyssa Terry of Tallahassee had moved into third in the women's competition; she was still third at the finish line and 19th overall in 1:35:58. Katasha Cornwell of Crawfordville was the first woman master and 12th female finisher, 35th overall in 1:43:08.

The race had started just after 8 a.m. By 11:30 a.m. the last athlete had left the course. The 2018 Boston Mini Marathon was over, but as the signs at the city limits used to remind everyone, the race comes back every year on the “last Saturday in October.”